China will make countering the Dalai Lama’s influence the “highest priority” in its work on ethnic affairs in Tibet, the region’s Communist Party boss says while vowing to uproot the monk’s “separatist and subversive” activities.

Beijing has said its Communist troops peacefully liberated Tibet in 1950 and regards the 80-year-old, Nobel Peace Prize-winning Buddhist monk as a separatist.

China’s Foreign Ministry expressed anger and threatened countermeasures in September after the Tibetan spiritual leader spoke at the European Parliament in France.

“First, we must deepen the struggle against the Dalai Lama clique, make it the highest priority in carrying out our ethnic affairs, and the long-term mission of strengthening ethnic unity,” Tibet party secretary Wu Yingjie said in a speech published on Friday in the official Tibet Daily.

“[We must] thoroughly expose the reactionary nature of the 14th Dalai Lama, crack down on separatist and subversive activities, and strive to eliminate at their roots harmful elements that damage ethnic unity,” Wu said.

Public veneration of the Dalai Lama, who fled China in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule, is prohibited in Tibet, although in private, many Tibetans revere the monk and display his picture.

Wu was appointed Tibet’s top official in late August, and has vowed stronger criticism of the Dalai Lama.

The government rejects criticism from rights groups and exiles who accuse it of trampling on the religious and cultural rights of the Tibetan people, saying instead that its rule has brought prosperity to a once-backward region.

Nonetheless, China faces no shortage of problems in the region, including those stemming from poverty, language barriers, and development that has at times clashed with a traditional herding lifestyle.